by Julie C. Dao
Please write back soon. I badly miss your company.
Your friend,
Mathilda
To Agnes:
I am not sure what to think. I have neither seen nor heard from you in over a month, and I am beginning to despise myself for the doubt I’ve had about you. I know in my heart that you are good and loyal, and you would never go back on your word or use me for my magic. I can only conclude that Oskar is preventing you from seeing my gifts and messages, or perhaps persuading you to ignore them.
Whatever the reason, my heart is breaking. I know our friendship means as much to you as it does to me, and I hope you will reconsider. I am glad that Hanau is taking to you and Oskar so well. Every time I look out of my gate, it seems you are entertaining a new guest for tea or supper. Was that Frau Werner herself the other day? Such an important person coming to call on you must have made Oskar very happy.
Please write, Agnes. At least send a little note if you are unable to see me.
Your friend,
Mathilda
“You look lovely this morning, Frau Heinrich,” a neighbor called as Agnes strolled by. She waved in thanks at the woman, swinging her basket as she entered the crowded market.
It was the first week of April, and winter had begun to ebb into spring. Icicles still frosted the trees like fairy glass and the sun shone weakly upon the frozen earth, but there was a freshness in the air. Agnes breathed it in, feeling more invigorated than she had in a long time. She had been cooped up indoors for too long, and though she and Oskar had frequently invited new acquaintances over for a meal—many of whom brought presents of meat and pastries—even entertaining had grown tiresome.
Distractions don’t last forever, Agnes reflected, then silenced that train of thought. She had left the house to get her guilt off her mind, not linger on it.
She took another deep, cleansing breath before stepping into Herr Steiner’s bakery, which was full of people. The shop took up the first level of the Steiners’ home. Rich, golden apple strudel and flaky, jam-filled tarts covered one table, while another held buttery biscuits and cookies of every kind. A counter ran alongside one wall, displaying dozens of beautifully made cakes, and Agnes headed toward it as the crowd dispersed. One of Herr Steiner’s tall, dark-haired daughters was carrying out a tray of piping-hot cinnamon cakes, fresh from the oven. Agnes closed her eyes and inhaled, thinking how much it smelled like Mathilda’s house.
So much for not lingering on her guilt.
For one wild and fleeting moment, she considered buying a cinnamon cake to bring to Mathilda’s house as a peace offering. They could eat it in front of the fire with cups of lavender tea and the cat dozing at their feet, and chat together as before. But Agnes knew, with a tightening in her gut, that she would not be welcome there again, not after coldly ignoring all of Mathilda’s attempts to reach her. The kind gifts and notes had stopped coming in March, and she had not known whether to feel relieved or heartbroken. While they had arrived at regular intervals, she had been able to fool herself that Mathilda still cared, but their absence meant that she had, at last, understood Agnes’s betrayal of her.
“Agnes! How wonderful to see you,” trilled Katharina Braun, pushing past a group of women to stand beside her. “Beautiful day to be out, isn’t it?”
“It is,” Agnes said, forcing a smile. “Are you looking for a cake as well?”
“My mother taught me never to come to a party empty-handed. I suppose that’s why half these people are here, looking for something to bring to the Bergmanns’. My money is on Frau Bauer buying that enormous rhubarb cake. She’s from the city and they do love to show off.”
Last week, Oskar had danced with joy at the invitation to the Bergmanns’ Easter party. It was proof that he and Agnes had been welcomed as worthy, respectable people. Agnes had found it harder to be happy, imagining them all celebrating while Mathilda sat alone in her cottage.
“…but when they went up the hill, the witch was completely gone!”
Agnes’s attention snapped back to Katharina. “I’m sorry, what?”
“My dear, where is your mind today?” the woman asked playfully. “You seem a hundred miles away. I asked if you saw the boys go past your cottage, and you nodded!”
“What boys? Could you repeat the story?”
“The Schmidt boys. They celebrated Franz’s birthday yesterday, and one of them dared him to pay the witch a visit,” Katharina explained. “They all came with him, of course, hoping to see her curse off his fingernails or some such nonsense. But when they went up there, the gates were open and the house was empty, like she had never been there at all.”
Agnes’s chest tightened. “She’s gone?”
“Yes, and I hope for good. It’s better that way, if you ask me,” the woman said lightly, picking up a box of white sugar–dusted cookies. “No one wanted her here. She cast such a dark cloud over the whole town. Maybe now you and Oskar will get some decent neighbors…though who knows if anyone would want a house that’s been occupied by a sorceress!”
Deep down, Agnes had known that betraying Mathilda would mean never seeing her again, but still the hollow ache of loss gnawed at her. Mathilda’s disappearance felt odd and unfinished, like reading a book only to skip the final pages. A story without an end. Never again would Agnes read one of her charming notes or receive a kind and thoughtful gift from her.
“My dear, you are distracted today,” Katharina scolded her, and too late, Agnes realized that the woman had asked her a question. “What’s gotten into you?”
“I’ve been cooped up for too long, I think,” Agnes said apologetically.
Katharina’s eyes scanned her slowly from head to toe, then slid to Agnes’s belly, and then she smiled like a cat that had gotten into a saucer of cream. “Well, well, so that’s the reason. I no longer blame you, my dear,” she said, laughing. “When were you going to tell me? Or were you planning to keep it a secret until you could no longer hide it, you sly thing?”
Agnes’s heart seemed to stop beating. “What do you mean?” she croaked.
The woman patted her arm. “Give me a few months and I’ll be able to tell you if it’s a boy or a girl, based on how low you’re carrying.”
Agnes stared at her, speechless, feeling as though someone had poured a bucket of melted snow over her head. She pressed one hand over her belly, inside her open coat. “Can it be true?” she whispered, leaning against the counter for support. “How can you guess that?”
“I didn’t guess. I’m a midwife, I know it for certain. I’ve tended to women in the family way for as long as you’ve been alive, and there’s no hiding a babe on the way from me. But, my dear,” Katharina added, her eyes wide, “don’t tell me you didn’t know?”
Agnes shook her head, her breath coming in gulps as she gazed down at her stomach. It was true that she hadn’t bled for months, but after so many disappointments, she had taken it to be simply a peculiarity of her body. She had not allowed herself to hope.
“Can it be true?” she repeated, her eyes filling with tears as she thought of telling Oskar.
Katharina took her hand and squeezed it. “Congratulations, Agnes. I’m happy for you and Oskar. You’ve been delightful additions to our town, and I’m glad you will add a third.”
The tears spilled down Agnes’s face as she hugged the woman. How could she and Oskar have ever called the Brauns busybodies? They were wonderful, lovely people, particularly Katharina. “I hope you’ll be one of the first people I introduce my baby to,” she said, her voice trembling with emotion, and the midwife’s smile split her face as Agnes rushed out of the bakery without buying anything she had intended to. She ran all the way home, and when she reached their cottage, she could hear her husband whistling as he fed the animals out back.
“Oskar!” she cried joyously. “I have to tell you…”
The rest of her sentence died in her throat when she saw the basket sitting at the gate.
It was made of pale
, woven straw, with a frost-blue ribbon tied around its handle. A piece of blue-and-white-checkered flannel covered the gift inside, but Agnes could see a note with familiar handwriting peeking out from the folds. Her knees trembled as she bent to pick it up.
To my former neighbor:
I am well. I have gone elsewhere and will not trouble you again, knowing what a burden my friendship has been to you. I wish you had been the person I thought you were, but I see now that you are just like everyone else. To say I have been bitterly disappointed would not do justice to the heartbreak you caused me. I suppose I ought to thank you for reminding me why I should never trust anyone. I wonder if you meant to use me the whole time.
But it doesn’t matter now. You have chosen to break your promise, and you can only hope that the consequences will be kind. It is out of my hands entirely.
In this basket, I enclose a gift I was making for you when I thought you were still my friend. I don’t want it in my possession anymore.
Mathilda
Agnes pressed her fist against her mouth, her shoulders shaking with sobs as she read the note again. There were several splotches on the page where tears had marred the ink, and they hurt even more than the words. She imagined Mathilda weeping at her table as she wrote this last angry good-bye, while down the hill, she and Oskar went carelessly on with their lives.
Tears blurred her vision as she reached for what lay in the basket under the flannel. It was a beautiful baby girl’s dress of blush-pink wool, embroidered with little yellow flowers.
“Back from market so early? I thought you’d be gone longer,” Oskar said cheerily, coming around the side of the cottage. He stopped short at the sight of her. “What’s wrong?”
But Agnes could not find her voice.
She held up the baby’s dress from Mathilda, hoping it would do all the talking for her.
Elva slid out of bed and put on her slippers. Last month, for her seventh birthday, Mama and Papa had given her this little bedroom all to herself, with its pretty yellow curtains and a big window facing the barn and the river Main. She was glad she didn’t have to share a room with her brothers anymore. Rayner, who was five, would hear her sneaking out and demand to come, too, and that would wake up little Cay, and then Mama would be upset. But Elva was a big girl now, so she could come and go whenever she liked…as long as her parents didn’t know.
She crept down the corridor, moving noiselessly past the boys’ room, and sat at the top of the staircase. The downstairs was bathed in cheery light, and she could hear the grown-ups talking and laughing. She lowered herself a few steps to catch a glimpse of the party and gasped.
How pretty the ladies looked! They wore festive dresses of ruby and green and deep gold, and the men looked nice, too, with their dark coats and groomed mustaches. But Mama looked the loveliest and Papa the handsomest, Elva thought, swelling with pride at the sight of them standing before the fireplace. Mama wore blue ribbons in her hair that matched Papa’s sparkling eyes as he laughed at something Herr Steiner, the baker, was saying.
“A toast, Oskar!” someone called, and several other men voiced their agreement.
Papa raised his glass. “Dear friends and neighbors, thank you for joining Agnes and me on this final night of the year. We wish you good fortune ahead—as much good fortune as we have had. Eight years ago, we were penniless, with only a cottage, a cow, three goats, and each other.” He looked at Mama, and she slipped her hand into his. “Now we have three children, a new home and farm, a few more cows and goats…and considerably less peace and quiet.”
Everyone laughed.
“Don’t forget the chickens and the horses, Papa!” Elva clapped her hands over her mouth as the adults laughed even harder, swiveling their heads to the staircase where she perched.
“Why aren’t you in bed?” Mama exclaimed, but Papa grinned and held out his arms, so Elva ran right into them. He picked her up and kissed her, and she giggled as his whiskers, which were the same bright gold as her hair, tickled her.
“I want a sip of that, please,” Elva told him, pointing at the amber liquid in his glass.
Papa shook his head. “Whiskey is a grown-up drink, my love. But you can hold it quietly for me while I finish my toast, all right?”
“All right.” Elva felt proud in her father’s arms, holding on to his glass as all the adults looked at her. Papa began to speak again, his deep voice rumbling against her shoulder, and she amused herself by looking at the guests through the whiskey. It turned them all funny shades of burnt orange and copper, like the autumn leaves she and Rayner loved to roll around in, and the glass made their faces look blurry and wobbly.
She held the drink closer, wrinkling her nose at the smell, and looked inside. She could see her own face in it. She blinked an eye, and so did her reflection. She blew a kiss, and so did the Elva in the glass. She wiggled her eyebrows, and as she did so, she noticed something funny about her reflection’s chin. There was a dark spot that looked just like a little black horse.
As she watched, entranced, her reflection disappeared and in its place was Papa’s barn. The horse wasn’t one of Papa’s, though, and it had been tied to the door of the goats’ pen. Elva frowned, wondering what a strange horse was doing with her father’s goats. The rope was just short enough that the animal couldn’t reach a bale of hay stacked against the wall. It strained forward, pulling the rope taut, and Elva saw the door of the goats’ pen begin to tremble. And then, all of a sudden, it burst open and the startled goats began running out!
“Papa!” Elva cried, sloshing the whiskey over her father’s arm. “The goats are escaping!”
“What on earth…?” He set her down and took the glass away, wringing out the soaked fabric of his jacket into the fire.
“Someone must be falling asleep,” Mama said quickly, and the guests chuckled.
“I wasn’t dreaming, Mama!” Elva stamped her foot. Everything she saw always turned out to be right. Once, she had looked into a rain puddle and saw some naughty boys stealing their chickens, and it had happened a month later, exactly as she said. She had even seen Uncle Otto in her water basin, breaking his leg as he fell from the roof of his barn, and Mama and Papa had doubted her until a letter arrived later that week. “I saw it, honest! There’s a big black horse in the goats’ pen and it pulled the door open, and they’re all getting out!”
Herr Steiner stopped laughing. He was a big, jolly man who always gave Elva an extra cookie when she and Mama went to his bakery. “Come to think of it, Oskar,” he said ashamedly, “I did put Gunnar in with your goats. I came late and the other stalls were all taken. It might be worth looking in on them…. I’ll go….”
“It’s all right, Herr Steiner,” Elva said. “You shouldn’t have tied him to the door, though.”
Mama and Papa both looked at Elva, their faces now stern, serious. She clung to Papa’s leg, wondering if they were mad at her. Mama kept glancing at the guests like she was scared.
“I’ll go with you,” Papa told the baker, and they put on their warm wraps and went out.
“My daughter’s bedroom faces the barn,” Mama told the others in a bright voice that didn’t sound like her own. “Isn’t that right, darling? You must have seen it all happening from your window.” She excused herself and swooped Elva up, hurrying upstairs with her.
“Mama, I saw it in the glass. I wasn’t making it up!”
“Quiet, now. Don’t wake the boys.” Her mother set her down and knelt in front of her. “I believe you. But, my dear one, it’s not right to see things this way.”
“It’s not?”
“No. People aren’t supposed to know when something is about to happen. It’s not normal to see the future.” Her mother looked so scared and worried that Elva felt upset.
“I’m sorry, Mama,” she said in a small voice. “I didn’t know it was wrong.”
Mama hugged her tight and kissed the top of her head. “It’s not your fault, precious. I’m not angry with you. But
if you ever see anything like that again,” she said, pulling away a bit, “and other people are around, keep it to yourself until you can tell me or Papa privately. Don’t tell anyone outside of the family, because it might scare them. Do you promise?”
“I promise.”
“Now be my good girl and get back into bed. Can you do that for me?”
Elva padded away to her room, but as soon as Mama got downstairs, she heard Papa and Herr Steiner come back into the house. The baker returned to the party, and Mama and Papa stayed talking quietly by the stairs. Elva couldn’t help it—she snuck down the corridor to listen.
“The animals are safe,” her father said. “I told Hans she saw it from her window.”
“That’s what I told everyone else,” Mama said, sounding relieved.
“I’m not sure he believed me. He kept asking how she knew where he had tied his horse, since the goats’ pen isn’t visible from the house.” Papa sighed. “I should have known better than to give her my glass. I wasn’t thinking.”
There was a noise like Mama sucking air through her teeth. “This can’t keep happening, Oskar. I feel as though bad luck has been following us for eight years, and this odd…ability of Elva’s is just another thing to add to the list.”
“We’ve had quite a bit of good luck, too,” Papa pointed out.
“Always two good things, followed by one bad thing. Over and over and over.” Elva heard the soft sound of Mama’s slippered feet pacing. “She told me three is a powerful number. Maybe all magic comes in a pattern of threes, including its consequences.”
“Agnes…”
“The day I found out I was having Elva, Honey was born,” Mama said, and Elva’s ears pricked up at the mention of their sweet goat. “And then a wind came out of nowhere and swept my washing into the trees. Every shirt and sheet lost when we couldn’t afford to replace them.”